Qantas call centre in Suva, Fiji

[Lynda2475]

haven’t implied that. Maybe you have the wrong poster?

Apologies have corrected.

 

[jpp42]

So are these experiences getting through to those responsible in management to actually see there are issues that need to be addressed?

I'm sure middle management who operates the call centres would be just as angry as customers. If you take a charitable view, most people want to do a good job and and overall would be customer focused. Someone above mentioned the pride they had in going "all hands on deck" in call centres to ensure queues stayed reasonable. I would guess that middle management would be begging for more resources - more time for training, more positions to hire, higher wages to get better quality staff, etc.

The problem is perhaps that upper management doesn't approve this investment, because most of the calls to the call centre are not revenue generating - they are people trying to rebook things, cancel, make award bookings (very small revenue), etc. Given the airline would be focused on the very short term - keeping the books balanced in the ongoing pandemic - they don't see much upside in investing in the call centres, as it just means people spending their credits or classic rewards etc which are not bringing in much new revenue. "All hands on deck" at HQ are likely focused on getting new revenue in to keep the airline operating, rather than looking after presumed loyal customers with credits or QFF points. With an absence of meaningful competition, especially for international, and the incredible brand loyalty that Qantas has generated over the years, the customer losses will be minimal (this was proven even before the pandemic when Qantas started eroding their call centres).

By the way, does anyone know if travel agents have similar problems reaching Qantas when they need to escalate issues on their travel agent only lines? I'm wondering the call centre failures might be an opportunity for travel agents to come back into the market, due to much better customer service they might be able to offer. But this only works if they themselves don't have to spend hours on the phone.

 

[RichardMEL]

I wonder if QF ever do "mystery shoppers" to their own call centres.....

(not that I want phone lies tied up with "test" calls mind you, but gee it would be interesting to know...)

 

[Carrots]

I wonder if QF ever do "mystery shoppers" to their own call centres.....

(not that I want phone lies tied up with "test" calls mind you, but gee it would be interesting to know...)

The evidence in these Forums would suggest the answer is a hard no

 

[Mattg]

I wonder if QF ever do "mystery shoppers" to their own call centres.....

(not that I want phone lies tied up with "test" calls mind you, but gee it would be interesting to know...)

I've said this before, but I would challenge anyone in Qantas management to actually call their own call centre as a Bronze frequent flyer.

The current situation with the call centre says to me that none of them have.

 

[cmon0005]

I've been informed that Qantas is now using another outsourced call centre (operated by Mindpearl) based in Suva, Fiji. It's run by the same company that operates the horrendous Cape Town call centre.

Maybe I am an outlier but the times I have been served by the Cape Town agents, they have been pretty knowledgeable, polite and prompt. Only a few times they got stuck with something but put me on hold and spoke to the ticketing support line to get it fixed.

 

[Mattg]

Maybe I am an outlier but the times I have been served by the Cape Town agents, they have been pretty knowledgeable, polite and prompt. Only a few times they got stuck with something but put me on hold and spoke to the ticketing support line to get it fixed.

Interesting and good to hear, actually.

Have you ever tried making an award booking with them?

 

[cmon0005]

Interesting and good to hear, actually.

Have you ever tried making an award booking with them?

No but I had a rather difficult booking where I had 3 separate vouchers that I wanted to use for one booking, this can only be done over the phone. The ticket wouldn't issue, but they called through to ticketing escalations and got it manually ticketed.

 

[albatross710]

Qantas has much blame here for not investing properly in its on shore teams and online platform, but if they are as @albatross710 was implying deliberately preventing offshore call centres from being able to see and ticket paid or reward inventory which should be available to customers well then that is a breach of consumer law.

From the outside we will never know. All we can do is collect data points.

 

[TheInsider]

From the outside we will never know. All we can do is collect data points.

Nothing to do with 'permissions', everything to do with training.

The offshore call centres use a different system to AKL and HBA

 

[Mattg]

Nothing to do with 'permissions', everything to do with training.

The offshore call centres use a different system to AKL and HBA

So, is it possible that staff at the offshore call centres cannot see or don't have access to some award availability on partner airlines? Or is it purely down to them not checking properly/not being trained properly?

The number of times I've called up and been told there was no availability on a flight I wanted, even though the operator could see the flight in their system, tells me they might be seeing different availability. Unless none of them have received proper training?

 

[Lynda2475]

The offshore call centres use a different system to AKL and HBA

Which is what I predicted, as is normal practice for offshore call centres.

And training is obvious starting point, but I do wonder if their system is also not interpreting the results returned via APIs properly for reward seats, hence why there is never partner availability.

 

[TheInsider]

So, is it possible that staff at the offshore call centres cannot see or don't have access to some award availability on partner airlines? Or is it purely down to them not checking properly/not being trained properly?

The number of times I've called up and been told there was no availability on a flight I wanted, even though the operator could see the flight in their system, tells me they might be seeing different availability. Unless none of them have received proper training?

It is a training issue, because there is a training module for ARD (Amadeus Reservation Desktop) on international redemptions. Maybe they are unaware of redemption fare classes?

 

[TheInsider]

Which is what I predicted, as is normal practice for offshore call centres.

And training is obvious starting point, but I do wonder if their system is also not interpreting the results returned via APIs properly for reward seats, hence why there is never partner availability.

The different system they use is actually one that Amadeus had built. The one Qantas staff use, is an in-house system (very very old), like an overlay.

 

[Mattg]

It is a training issue, because there is a training module for ARD (Amadeus Reservation Desktop) on international redemptions. Maybe they are unaware of redemption fare classes?

Quite possibly. But surely this should be a standard part of the training?

If Qantas is not even training these staff to know what the redemption fare classes are, they should not be routing calls there if someone wants to make an international award booking. That's just a waste of time for both the operator and the customer. And it's not like there's no way for QF to know what someone is calling about - they literally ask you this at the start of the call.

 

[Lynda2475]

It is a training issue, because there is a training module for ARD (Amadeus Reservation Desktop) on international redemptions. Maybe they are unaware of redemption fare classes?

My experience yesterday was that Fiji said there was zero award availability in any class on any of the 12 BA daily flights between LHR and EDI on the day I wanted or the next day - even though I could see economy seats if I did a new reward search online (there is a known issue where BA domestic flights from LHR don't show in Optus web site). She also said could only see Y revenue/paid seats on all those flights, when BA website showed that there were also J revenue/paid seats available on all flights.

I specifically asked her to look for X class (Y reward) and U class (J reward), she was adamant there was only Y class.

Called premium and they confirmed within a minute which flights had J and that all flights had Y, the only flight off the table was the one that didn't meet the MCT.

 

[Must...Fly!]

We say training but it's COVID. If these staff are being directed to Zoom or YouTube style videos to learn about redemptions and res systems....well having been through a few myself in years past, it would not be easy. Then there's the added problem if they simply don't care...

 

[Mattg]

We say training but it's COVID. If these staff are being directed to Zoom or YouTube style videos to learn about redemptions and res systems....well having been through a few myself in years past, it would not be easy. Then there's the added problem if they simply don't care...

I'm sure COVID doesn't help, and it's a convenient excuse for Qantas. But I had the same issues with the Cape Town call centre in 2019.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I'm sure COVID doesn't help, and it's a convenient excuse for Qantas. But I had the same issues with the Cape Town call centre in 2019.

I don't think it's a reasonable excuse either. Ultimately if you are not trained to the level required how can you be expected to perform at that level?

 

[Lynda2475]

I don't believe Covid is a a factor, I have delivered training to offshore cal centre resources over teams that is interactive, remote learning isnt restricted to watching a video. And the problem seems to pre-date covid at least with the SA call centre.

The agent I spoke with in Fiji was very articulate, polite and apologetic, she did seem to care but was adamant the system showed no availability and therefore there wasn't any, despite my evidence to the contrary.